Seattle likes debate, not action

OK, Seattle, you didn't think much of your mayor. You disliked the mayor before him even more.

So now that we've kicked two mayors in a row out the door, my burning question is: What do we want, anyway?

What style of leader would cut it for Seattle?

A rap on Mayor Greg Nickels was that he was a strongman. He supposedly made decisions without taking the full advice of the public or City Council. Many citizens felt, therefore, that he was arrogant.

He addressed this in his goodbye speech Friday. However it came off, he said, it was all part of a plan. A purposeful effort to jar Seattle out of a pattern of endless dithering and blue-ribbon-panel discussions.

"I would rather be an effective mayor and get things done than a politician who left nothing more significant behind than footprints in the sand," Nickels said.

How effective he was is open to debate (see "snow, failure to plow"). But he did get some things done. He's the father of light rail. The city boomed during his time — maybe was too boomy for some. In terms of parks, crime, roads and most other urban issues, the city's better off now than it was eight years ago.

He also took a stubborn stand against rebuilding an elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct — a crusade I bet people will thank him for one day.

But his attempts to make decisions seemed to irritate something deep in Seattle's DNA. I'm not talking about the content of the decisions (his stances are squarely in the Seattle mainstream). No, what seemed to irk people is that we had a mayor who was willing to end the debate.

"I don't think Seattle actually wants a strong mayor," concluded Dwight Pelz, the state Democratic Party chairman who came to see Nickels bow out.

"Remember Mayor Nice? Seattle liked him. Maybe he should run again."

He's talking about Norm Rice, and Pelz is right — Rice was the last mayor Seattle truly liked. What he got done is another matter. I doubt Nickels was referring to Rice when he said "footprints in the sand," but he could have been.

Maybe footprints, not major changes, are all we really want.

I have a theory that Seattle's politics is defined by how much people love it here. In other cities, people clamor for change because they're beleaguered by crime, decay or other severe urban problems.

Here, though, what most people want is for the city to stay about the same. So the guiding principle of our politics isn't doing. It's talking.

Nickels' right-hand man, Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis, says neither he nor the mayor has any regrets about violating that principle.

"The alternative would have been more meetings, more process," Ceis says.

Especially in the area of transportation, he said, the endless Seattle Way threatened to do real harm to the region.

"Somebody had to finally make some decisions," Ceis said. "Do we have to revisit and rehash every single thing? This isn't supposed to be a participatory democracy, where we govern by town hall."

Could have fooled me. Take the viaduct. We talked about that for eight years. Finally a blue-ribbon commission of labor, industry, environmentalists and others came up with the tunnel plan we have today.

It wasn't even Nickels' idea, but when he backed it, he got bashed for foisting it on an unsuspecting populace. People wanted more process!

I have my doubts about the tunnel, too, but should we toss it out and talk about it for one, two, four more years? At some point, this much democracy is just dysfunction.

Or take the Sonics. People blame Nickels for losing the team. But 74 percent of city voters passed an initiative against taxpayer subsidies of pro-sports arenas. Didn't we want him to say no to the Sonics' demands? We all but forced him to, at the ballot box.

Elections say as much about us as they do about the politicians. So what does Seattle want, exactly? Some say Nickels was too corporate, but now we may be replacing him with a cellphone executive (Joe Mallahan). Others say Nickels was too environmentalist, but now we may be replacing him with someone even greener (Mike McGinn).

Face it, Seattle. We're fractured. Flailing. We don't know what the hell we want.

I wouldn't be surprised if in a year or so, we suddenly realize that guy who couldn't plow the snow wasn't so bad after all.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.